Saturday, September 5, 2009

America is a less Christian nation than it was 20 years ago, and Christianity is not losing out to other religions, but primarily to a rejection of religion altogether, a survey published Monday found.

Seventy-five percent of Americans call themselves Christian, according to the American Religious Identification Survey from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1990, the figure was 86 percent.

It’s so nice to find good news in these times, specially when the religious think they still have the right to stomp on others’ rights and shove their beliefs on our faces by disregarding knowledge, science and basic human rights.

Naturally, American christians are far from happy about this.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League said he thinks a radical shift towards individualism over the last quarter-century has a lot to do it.

What’s wrong with individualism? Isn’t it, the power of the people, for the people and by the people what America was founded on? Besides, I bet that if a liberal said something like that the right would be very quick in labeling that person as a socialist. Again, hypocrisy ad maximum, coming not just from the religious, but from the religious right.

"The three most dreaded words are thou shalt not," he told Lou Dobbs. "Notice they are not atheists -- they are saying I don't want to be told what to do with my life."

Isn’t that what most conservatives dislike? A government that tells the people what to do? That is wrong, but if it’s a magic sky man, then it’s ok.

Yet, not everything is good news.

The survey also found that "born-again" or "evangelical" Christianity is on the rise, while the percentage who belong to "mainline" congregations such as the Episcopal or Lutheran churches has fallen.

I don’t usually hear much about episcopalians or lutherans doing much fuss about issues, but evangelicals sure do.

The rise in evangelical Christianity is contributing to the rejection of religion altogether by some Americans, said Mark Silk of Trinity College.

"In the 1990s, it really sunk in on the American public generally that there was a long-lasting 'religious right' connected to a political party, and that turned a lot of people the other way," he said of the link between the Republican Party and groups such as the Moral Majority and Focus on the Family.

It’s really nice to see that people notice how despicable these self-righteous organizations are, and thus try to be away from them. Which is also applicable to the catholic church.

Silk also said the revelation that some Catholic priests had sexually abused children -- and senior figures in the church hierarchy had helped to hide it -- drove some Catholics away from religion.

What else can a rational person do? You see your spiritual guides are raping children and their superiors are doing nothing about it, but don’t miss the opportunity to preach about the love of god, sex is bad, homosexuality is a sin and other nonsense, what do you do? Can you really bear all that and still call yourself a catholic?

Finally, those who leave their religions don’t call themselves “atheists” or anything like that. They just say they have no religion. I hope they will eventually embrace atheism, or other expression of a rejection of faith, as a perfect way of life, based on reason and knowledge instead of blind faith. Change is gradual, but it has been happening for quite a time now. There is hope.